Here I am.. Summer of 2016.  My oldest will soon be entering high school and my youngest babes will soon be entering middle school.  It’s kinda weird writing those words.  How could life be passing by so quickly?  Just yesterday I promise you they were babies and I wondered how I would survive 2 infants and 1 toddler all at once lol.  I wish I could accurately put into words the feelings that I feel today though.  It’s sorta a weird stab in the chest that is so slow but yet sudden that it’s done and over before you knew what actually hit you…and therefore most definitely hard to explain.  I read blogs some days but it’s so irrelevant to my life that I suddenly stop and return to my life of daydreams and memories.  Most people that blog…talk about babies or toddlers or even their young elementary children and how cute and sweet each milestone is.  People don’t blog about their older children, their teens, or even young adults.  Life is different when we hit these specific moments in our lives.  They aren’t quite as cute, or sweet, or innocent.  Instead…they are different.  Yes… some days may be exciting…but in a different sort of way.  We go to their 5th grade celebration and they run wild visiting each of their friends and their Moms sit on the sidelines and may get a nod or a wave in their direction and in that exact moment our heart skips a beat and we are so proud…but different from when we held their little hands during their class parties and they showed us every inch of their classroom and their artwork on the walls..  It’s just a different type of pride that we carry.  Yes..it’s so fun to watch them slap high fives with their friends and watch them catch glimpses of their crushes as they smile in their direction.  It’s exciting to sit on the sidelines of our teens and watch them fix their own hair, apply their own makeup, and choose their own styles of clothing, etc….and absolutely be supportive of these new found choices that they independently make.  It’s exciting to watch our teens get dressed up for their school dances and watch them from our cars as they excitedly enter their schools on their own..but it’s so different from the Daddy/Daughter Dance that we sent them on just a few years before where we snapped pics all the way into the dance itself.  It’s a different type of happiness…a different type of love… We sit back and watch them from afar…and some days we are so overly proud of these young people and how far they have come and how independent that they are…and some days we are sad…because as our children are growing into adults…us adults are growing as well.  We are trying to figure out how to not be quite as needed as we once were…how to be more independent on our own without our littles clutching to our legs…  It isn’t easy.  I promise you that.  Lots of tears along the way..  Lots and lots of tears…but we eventually wipe those tears away…and we have lots and lots of smiles because we see that the years that we’ve put into raising our babes up…has resulted into respectful, responsible, loving, caring, and amazing young people…and we had a part in all of that.  Yep…we did it.  It’s hard letting go some days…but the rewards in our journey is great.  Happy graduation to all 3 of my loves as my oldest enters high school and my youngest babes enter middle school.. We did it ya’ll… I love ya’ll more than the moon, stars, and sky…and then some more after that… Always…and forever..